Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Money can't buy happiness

Extremely wealthy people have their own set of concerns:
anxiety about their children, uncertainty over their relationships and fears of
isolation, finds research by Robert Kenny.

Most of what we think we know about people with a lot of
money comes from television, movies and beach novels — and a lot of it is
inaccurate, says Robert Kenny, EdD.

In an effort to remedy that, Kenny, a developmental
psychologist and senior advisor at the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at
Boston College, is co-leading a research project on the aspirations, dilemmas
and personal philosophies of people worth $25 million or more. Kenny and his
colleagues surveyed approximately 165 households via an anonymous online survey
and were surprised to find that while money eased many aspects of these
people's lives, it made other aspects more difficult.

Dr. Robert Kenny

The Monitor spoke to Kenny about his findings and about the
significance of his research for those of us who don't have a net worth of $25
million or more.

WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO STUDY WEALTHY FAMILIES?

We wanted to try to understand the deeper motivations of
people in high net worth households. They are rarely questioned about this, and
instead are asked whether they would like a Mercedes or a Lexus. Do they prefer
Tiffany's or Cartier? Most surveys of high net worth households are marketing
surveys to sell a product, so the questions that are asked are pretty narrow.

We decided to ask three major questions: First, we asked,
"What is the greatest aspiration for your life?" As far as we can
tell, no one has ever asked this population that question, yet there are
assumptions made about this all the time. The second major question was,
"What's your greatest aspiration for your children?" Our third
question was, "What's your greatest aspiration for the world?" After
each of the major questions we asked, "How does your money help you with
your greatest aspiration?" and, "How does your money get in the
way?"

WHAT DID YOU FIND?

People consistently said that their greatest aspiration in
life was to be a good parent — not exactly the stereotype some might expect.
When asked whether their money helps with that, they answered with all the
obvious: good schools, travel, security, varied experiences. But when we asked
how their money gets in the way, that was a payload. We received response after
response on how money is not always helpful. They mentioned very specific
concerns, such as the way their children would be treated by others and
stereotyped as rich kids or trust fund babies, they wondered if their children
would know if people really loved them or their money, whether they'd know if
their achievements were because of their own skills, knowledge and talent or
because they have a lot of money.

Some were concerned about motivation. They worried that if
their children have enough money and don't have to worry about covering the
mortgage, what will motivate them? How will they lead meaningful lives? This is
where the money might get in the way and make things confusing, not necessarily
better. Very few said they hoped their children made a lot of money, and not
many said they were going to give all the money to charity and let their kids
fend for themselves. They were, however, really interested in helping their
children figure out how they could live a meaningful life. Even though they did
not have to "make a living," they did need to make a life.

As for the respondents' aspirations for the world, they
focused, once again, on how to help the youth in the world live healthy,
meaningful and impactful lives. Their answers were consistently youth-focused:
They were concerned about being good parents, they were concerned about their
children and they were concerned about the children of the world in general. We
found that to be very interesting, and even surprising because it runs contrary
to so many of the stereotypes about this population.

WHAT HAD YOU EXPECTED TO HEAR?

One could expect that you might hear things like, "I
wanted to make a lot of money and become financially independent and be able to
do whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it." But very few said
anything like that, although they appreciated the temporal freedom. It was so
non-financially focused. I expected that when we asked them about their
greatest aspiration for their children, we'd get a lot more people saying they
wanted their children to be world leaders, but that's not what they said at
all. People said, "I'd like them to think about how to make their world a
better place." Not the world, their world — their community, their
neighborhood, their family.

WHAT MIGHT PSYCHOLOGISTS FIND MOST INTERESTING ABOUT THIS
WORK?

A net worth of $25 million or more brings temporal freedom,
spatial freedom and sometimes psychological freedom, but it's not always easy.
Eventually temporal freedom — the freedom to do anything you want — raises
dilemmas about what the best way to use all your time might be. There's also
spatial freedom: You get to build anything you want — a house, a business, a
new nonprofit — and people often get lost or befuddled with all of their
options. And you get choice. You can go to this restaurant or that one, this
resort or that one, buy this car or that one. People can get overwhelmed by all
the choices and possibilities, and the amount of freedom that they have.

Then the overwhelming question becomes: What is the best use
of my time and resources? After a while one can actually become stymied and
even dispirited. There are plenty of folks who are more than willing to make
suggestions, but it takes a lot of individual work to develop the psychological
freedom to make decisions. For most, that's not a problem because time and
money are limited, so the choices are limited. Being willing to try to
understand the challenges of having an oversupply of time and money can be
difficult for therapists.

The takeaway from all of this is that there seemed to be a
trend that said you can't buy your way out of the human condition. For example,
one survey participant told me that he'd sold his business, made a lot of money
off that and lived high for a while. He said, "You know, Bob, you can just
buy so much stuff, and when you get to the point where you can just buy so much
stuff, now what are you going to do?"

WHAT'S THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS RESEARCH FOR THE VAST
MAJORITY OF US WHO AREN'T WEALTHY?

This research shows the rest of the world, who often think
that if they just made one more bonus or sold one more item or got one more
promotion, then their world and their family's world would be so much better,
that this isn't necessarily true. There's another whole level of concerns that
parents are going to have about their kids. One of those concerns is this
feeling of isolation. That's actually a No. 1 concern for families with a high
net worth — this sense of isolation — and the higher the wealth, the worse it
gets. We know this is a very powerful feeling when it comes to one's overall
sense of well-being, and these people feel very isolated because they have what
most of the world thinks they want. But just because you have money doesn't
mean you're not going to have a bad day every once in a while. But what you
often lose when you have all this money is the friendships that support you
through the difficult times.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED THROUGH YOUR YEARS OF WORKING WITH
PEOPLE WITH A HIGH NET WORTH?

I think the toughest part about both working with this
population and being in this population is that as soon as you say they have a
net worth of $25 million, someone will start playing the violin. Like,
"Oh, cry me a river, you have all this money and it's causing
problems?"

No one is saying, "Poor me, I have a lot of
money." In fact, most of them are saying, "I love having a lot of
money. But don't get me wrong, there are some downsides."

These people don't have to worry about whether they'll have
enough to make the mortgage payment, and they feel very fortunate. But it isn't
nirvana either. If their kids have access to a lot of money, and therefore a
lot of drugs, that hurts just as much as if they don't have any money and their
kids are doing drugs. It doesn't save you from any of that. It's still a parent
who has a child who is hurting.

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